Around 450 Syrian fighters and their families were evacuated from two besieged areas on Monday under the kind of operation that the United Nations hopes can be a stepping stone toward a wider peace accord in the country's civil war.

At least 32 Islamic State fighters were killed and 40 more wounded in Syria's Raqqa province on Sunday, in a series of air strikes believed to be carried out by a U.S.-led coalition targeting the jihadists, a monitoring group said.

Heavy fighting erupted in southern Yemen near Aden airport on Friday when local militia attacked Shi'ite Houthi rebels in a push to drive them from the district, residents and fighters said.
Saudi-led forces also made four air

Islamic State fighters stormed a town in Iraq's western Anbar province on Saturday, killing at least 19 policemen and trapping others inside their headquarters, in the latest attack in the desert region where it controls large amounts of ter

The top US intelligence agency has sharply raised its estimate of the number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria to between 20,000 and 31,500, from its estimate in June of about 10,000.
A CIA spokesman said the new assessm

Shop assistants showcase elegant Italian menswear, next door a fast food restaurant buzzes with customers, and nearby a German sportswear shop hawks the latest high-end running shoes.
The scene could be downtown New York or Milan

Veteran fighters of last year's civil war in Libya have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organise rebels under conditions far more dire than those in the battle against Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan-Irish f

Libya's ramshackle government lost control of a former stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi on Tuesday after local people staged an armed uprising, posing the gravest challenge yet to the country's new rulers.
A bullet-scarred barracks, scorched